Comments on: Being Right Has Never Been So Depressinghttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing
Christopher Bird writes about things.Thu, 24 May 2018 01:20:12 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.9By: BenJhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292754
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 22:36:17 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292754Things like “bigly” probably help him among certain people, proving to them that he’s like them, not an intellectual. That one could well be an intentional goof. W. did those a lot too.

The difference is that W. didn’t seem like such an asshole, at least not all the time. Trump’s persona has deteriorated by leaps and bounds just since this blog post went up, yet a whole bunch of people will still vote for him. That’s the depressing part.

]]>By: Marionettehttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292604
Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:04:35 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292604How could anyone vote for a person whose vocabulary is so poor that he’d seriously use “bigly” in a sentence?
]]>By: Sisyphushttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292450
Wed, 19 Oct 2016 13:13:51 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292450@John Seavey:
Sure. Although, a case can be made for examples like George Wallace, Strom Thurman and Richard Nixon as well. Socially, we’re terrible at remembering the past and predicting the future. We remember the good bits of the past, the stirring speeches, but we forget the crap that happened in the background that made them necessary. So Trump is terrible, but I don’t think he’s uniquely terrible in the history of the United States (although on November 9th, when he loses, he might prove me wrong).

@Ratman:
Granted, Obama has hit civilian targets. Hillary is really pretty hawkish, and it’s something to remember. But to say, “Well, Hillary is bad, so it doesn’t matter, really, between her and Trump” seems to be bad logic. Hillary did vote for the war in Iraq which was shockingly bad judgement and she should (and has) had to explain why she did that. She did want to bomb Libya. And I would go so far as to say Afghanistan was a mistake. I have always been of the opinion that 9/11 was a criminal act, and therefore, the correct response was to use law enforcement techniques and professionals, not military ones.

All that said, John’s right. Trump legitimately does not seem to understand why we can’t just nuke ISIS. When he says “We have to knock out ISIS,” what do you think his plan for that is? It’s almost certainly more bombing in Syria and Iraq, and probably far more aggressively than anything that Obama’s done. When he says, “American Muslims know what’s going on,” that’s absurd. I’m a white Christian man. Does that mean I know when every homegrown white terrorist (or militia member as the media seems to call them) is going to go and shoot a cop or invade a wildlife sanctuary? Of course not. Trump has said that he wants to round up the families of terrorists and kill them. This is an order of magnitude worse than anything that anyone in U.S. politics has said on either side of the aisle in my memory. Sure. Trump hasn’t done these things, only said them. However, your proposition then is that we should either assume he’s been lying about this and, by extension, all of his positions all along, or that somehow what Hillary has done is worse. That’s a proposition that I don’t see as valid.

]]>By: John Seaveyhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292341
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 18:00:57 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292341@Ratman: Well, it’s more “someone who apparently couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t just nuke Tehran”. Apparently when Trump was working with foreign policy experts, he didn’t understand why we didn’t include first-strike nuclear weapons in our policy options and didn’t appreciate being told that it would be a bad idea. Think about how that might go in the Middle East.

Literally, no matter how bad you think Hillary is at anything–foreign policy, cozying up to Wall Street, openly sexually assaulting women–Trump is always a million times worse.

]]>By: Ratmanhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292340
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 17:26:10 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292340//So it was Hillary herself that started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? She did vote for the war in Iraq, and was Secretary of State, but (a) the war would have happened with or without her vote and (b) the area was pretty damn unstable before she became Secretary of State.//

>> You forgot when she convinced Obama to bomb Libya which even he admits was a mistake.

//As for Trump, the only reason he hasn’t bombed anyone is that he’s never had the chance to. But if you take him at his word, he certainly would if he was given the chance. He wants to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. He wants to institute a ban on Muslims coming in. He wants to torture people. He wants to target civilian families of enemy combatants. Those last two are actual war crimes, by the way.//

>> I’d take that criticism seriously except for the fact that the Obama Administration has already bombed hospital and wedding not sure what would change except maybe the press covering it.

//So yes, he’s not a monster on the scale of someone who has committed war crimes, but that is only because he’s never been in a position to commit war crimes. That’s not a great argument for putting him in the position, since he did flat out SAY we would commit war crimes if given the chance.//

>> So I have to choose between someone who say he want’s to bomb brown people and someone who already has. That’s very assuring.

]]>By: Julianhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292329
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 14:48:25 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292329Anyone who believes that Trump will appoint specific people to the Supreme Court just because he said he would is willfully ignoring his entire history of business dealings.

I expect his actual priority in appointees would be justices who will let him do whatever the hell he wants.

]]>By: Davidhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292208
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:31:20 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292208I live in Portland, and I just heard Kevin Mannix, former Republican candidate for governor, basically say on local NPR (paraphrasing) “Trump may be a horrible person, but at least he’s pro-life and will nominate who I want to be on the Supreme Court”
]]>By: John Seaveyhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292195
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 15:55:40 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292195On the one hand, I take your point. I should really have said “in my lifetime”.

On the other hand, if you really have to say, “Well, Trump isn’t as bad as the War of 1812,” I think my point is pretty much made. 🙂

]]>By: Sisyphushttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292173
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 13:22:39 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292173“This is seriously the most chilling, creepy, horrifying and horrible week of politics we’ve ever had in American history.”

I’ll give you chilling, creepy and horrifying (in the sense of “Oh, that’s just gross,”). However, we have a political history that includes such gems as:
0. The Alien and Sedition Acts were pretty horrible and were basically John Adams pushing through laws that would make Trump proud.
1. The War of 1812, where a war of choice and aggression resulted in the only time a foreign army has occupied U.S. soil (and burned the White House. THANKS CANADA!)
2. Bleeding Kansas – when you had slave owners from Missouri traveling north to the Kansas territory, and free-staters from the east coming in, each trying to make a majority. It ended up being, basically, a stage rehearsal for the Civil War.
3. Speaking of, the Civil War was more or less the worst moment in American Political history, where political differences, for the first and only time, led to actual revolution and bloodshed on a national scale.
4. The Rise of the KKK.

And that’s all more or less in the first 100 years of U.S. history. Trump is terrible, but I don’t think he’s risen to worst moment in U.S. history. Now, if on November 9th, he encourages his followers to refuse to accept the results of the election and tries to lead them in some sort of revolt or uprising, he might make the list. If on November 8th his supporters incite violence at polling places as the watch to make sure that “voters are accountable” which is a chilling statement in and of itself, then he might make the list. But so far, he’s just a terrible excuse for a human being, let alone presidential candidate.

I’m just saying, we all need to keep perspective. Trump is an unmitigated disaster, national embarrassment, and a walking cesspit of misogyny, racism, homophobia and barely contained violence and sexual assault. Rob Ford writ large. But he’s not a historically destructive force. Yet.

So it was Hillary herself that started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? She did vote for the war in Iraq, and was Secretary of State, but (a) the war would have happened with or without her vote and (b) the area was pretty damn unstable before she became Secretary of State.

As for Trump, the only reason he hasn’t bombed anyone is that he’s never had the chance to. But if you take him at his word, he certainly would if he was given the chance. He wants to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. He wants to institute a ban on Muslims coming in. He wants to torture people. He wants to target civilian families of enemy combatants. Those last two are actual war crimes, by the way.

So yes, he’s not a monster on the scale of someone who has committed war crimes, but that is only because he’s never been in a position to commit war crimes. That’s not a great argument for putting him in the position, since he did flat out SAY we would commit war crimes if given the chance.

]]>By: L. A. Julianhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292085
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 20:52:08 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292085David Neiwert’s been predicting this for at least fifteen years online. Neither this squalor, nor Jo Cox’s murder heralding Brexit, surprises us Umberto Eco fans.
]]>By: Daszhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-292078
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 18:36:30 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-292078I’m not sure why this is such a surprise to people. The Republican party has been dog whistling this shit since the 60s, nothing Trump has done or said is new. The only meaningful difference between Trump and any other Republican presidential candidate is that he’s directly saying it out loud. Probably the worst thing Trump has said this campaign is saying the military should commit war crimes against the families of suspected terrorists, and I had the president of a major conservative think tank tell me that to my face in 2005(More specifically, he though Iraq would be going better if we killed more civilians). In 2000, Bush ran a race-baiting ad about John McCain’s “black baby”. None of this shit is new.
]]>By: Fraserhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-291976
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 00:14:39 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-291976” He is a hateful proud man who would rather convince millions of people that the government is rigged against them than accept that he lost. If he can’t find a way to brush it all off and tell himself he won, he will continue to lash out and rile up millions of already angry and disillusioned people into a rabid frenzy. ”

True, but they’d have been frenzied anyway. I heard a number of local conservatives (I used to be in a very red-state community) during the Clinton years discuss how Clinton “was never elected by a majority of the American voters” and later how Al Gore really lost the popular vote. For close to 25 years there’s a chunk of the base that thinks any president they didn’t elect is invalid. The Clinton years also gave us growing numbers of right-wing militias and G. Gordon Liddy telling listeners how to kill federal agents in body armor.
They will be unhinged by Trump’s loss even if he kept his mouth shut. Then again, they might have become unhinged if he’d won–after all, that would prove the whole country supports racism and sexism, right?

“his opponent has destabilized the Middle East and has bombed more brown people than anyone else” That would be Bush II.

]]>By: Ratmanhttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-291965
Sat, 15 Oct 2016 21:02:53 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-291965I might be biased as brown person but calling Trump a monster when his opponent has destabilized the Middle East and has bombed more brown people than anyone else is the sorta white feminist hysterionics that makes me hate white people so much
]]>By: Grazzthttp://mightygodking.com/2016/10/14/being-right-has-never-been-so-depressing/#comment-291855
Fri, 14 Oct 2016 22:39:33 +0000http://mightygodking.com/?p=10116#comment-291855Idea for Saturday Night Live sketch: Democrat fixers standing in front of a calender, trying to figure out a schedule to drop all the Trump scandals where they won’t get in each others’ way.
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